If You're Not Doing Social You Will Be Fired

Once again, that’s not my line, but it came from Budd Media co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Jeff Ragovin on the opening panel on Day One of the Social Media Insider Summit.

It reminds me
of a post I did the other day during the Mobile Insider Summit about prediction that people who don’t get with the program will ultimately die, but not quite as fatal.

Ragovin’s
point is that social is entering its “2.0” phase, and with that maturation, is a maturing of marketing perspectives.

“It’s not just about launching pages anymore.
It’s about being across all the social channels,” he said. “It’s about tying in customer profiles and tying in a better understand of who they are, what they’re doing,
how influential they are.”

Ragovin said its really morphing from an advertising and branding medium into a conversational and interrogative medium that is really about “customer
relationship management.”

“We know that social has obviously changed the way every brand is doing [things],” Ragovin asserted, adding, “At this point in time, if
you’re not doing social, it’s kind of a fireable offense.”

Of course, Ragovin, whose company was recently acquired by Salesforce.com for a pretty high multiple -- and
presumably a pretty high earn-out agreement -- has a vested interest in you doing social. And if you don't, he may be the one getting fired.